Our teachers

ROOTS, GRANDPARENTS AND COMPANIONS

On this page we honor the roots, grandparents and companions of Process oriented Psychology. We are immensely grateful to all our teachers and co-creators, past, present and future. C.G Jung deserves a special mention, and below you can find a range of articles on the connections between Jung and Processwork.

Our viewpoints about Processwork grew out of Arny’s studies in Physics at M. I. T., and psychology at the Jung Institute in Zurich, and Amy’s studies at Antioch College and the Union Institute in dance and theater, as well as our contacts with indigenous and modern peoples the world over.

Our work is enriched, but also limited by our nationality, education, color, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and present good health.

Our teachers

In our opinion, Processwork and theory are indebted to, and created by, group consensus and the people who further explore, adapt and express the applications of process work in various cultures. We, Amy and Arny, are especially thankful to our personal teacher(s) who have now passed away; Ben Thompson, Franz Riklin, Barbara Hannah, and M. L. von Franz. We are also thankful to the students and diplomates of pw who have taught us a great deal, and to the whole process work community, who have created worlds to explore, dislike, love, and understand. We look forward to future transdisciplinary and transcultural discoveries and amplifications.

We acknowledge our heartfelt indebtedness to many people and realms of knowing and belief, which include, but are not limited to:

Taoism; “The Tao Te Ching” and the “I Ching”

Healers (Shamanism): Especially specific healers in the Giriama Tribe of East Kenya and to other groups and cultures in Africa. We were touched helping and learning from aboriginal elders we worked with on Canada's west coast, and South Western Australia

World spiritual and religious systems, Swami Muktananda and the various sects of Buddhism; especially to Zen Master, Keido Fukushima.

Social Activists: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others who support democracy and the equality of all beings.

Science and Consciousness research: Especially physics, both Newtonian thinking as well as the quantum and string theories, especially Erwin Schroedinger, David Bohm, Hugh Everett, Richard Feynman, John Wheeler, Edwin Taylor.

Jazz Musicians such asEllis Marsalis: the Great New Orleans Jazz pianist and educator. While studying the land and history of New Orleans, while studying Loyola University, we learned about Ellis Marsalis, regarded by many as the greatest jazz pianist in New Orleans. Today, he teaches music at Loyola and is director of the Creative Arts jazz studies program. In his own words, he follows “the moment and the process while teaching”. We loved hearing him speak (RealAudio file). (We are very grateful to NPR radio, to their Jazz Profiles.)

The late Antioch College Professor, Ben Thompson taught both Amy and Arny. He brought them together. In the following audio recording you will hear Ben Thompson’s reading of Arny’s 1972 manuscript, The Deathwalk, which years later was updated and published as The Shaman’s Body (1993). Remarkably and touchingly, Ben asked that this recording of the final chapter of The Deathwalk be played in his own voice at his funeral in the late 1980s. Thanks to Ben, his wife Lee, and his students who sent this tape to us.

Only after I had familiarized myself with alchemy did I realize that the unconscious is a process, and that the psyche is transformed or developed by the relationship of the ego to the contents of the unconscious. Carl Jung. Memories, Dreams and Reflections, p. 209

ARNY’S RESEARCH, ARTICLES, AND REVIEWS as a JUNGIAN Analyst and Training Analyst; 1971-1981

The Union Institute. (Union Graduate School PhD., 1972 Dissertation for Doctorate in Psychology) Dissertation Abstracts International 37, no. 2 (1976). Thanks to Mr. Stan Siver for having found this dissertation, and making it downloadable.

Psychological discoveries may be as bad as they are good. Freud, for example, discovered the so-called subconscious. He said that dreams were the “royal road” to the mysterious thing which we today call the unconscious. His followers focused on dreams and discovered a great deal about symbol channels; however, they also inadvertently neglected other channels of the unconscious such as parapsychological phenomena, divinatorial systems, and body phenomena. Every discovery about the unconscious focuses on some new thing and neglects other important phenomena. That may be one reason why we know a great deal about images and symbols today, but very little about body life.

“I have observed that synchronicities in psychosis sometimes display a particular pattern. The psychotic identifies his ego with God and feels that he enslaves his environment. Also he feels that his environment is manipulated by creative/destructive daemons, and he lives in the fear that they will turn and destroy him. It is this image of man as an omnipotent creator, threatened by his own magical creations. All synchronicities do not, of course, possess this character; we have no complete differentiated pattern of such phenomena. But some do, and a study of this particular recurrent image can help us understand at least one governing image behind synchronicities in psychotic states.”

DREAMBODY: NOTES ON THE HISTORY AND THEORY OF PROCESS ORIENTED PSYCHOLOGY

This article was composed (in German) by the creative spirit of Frau Dr. Annelen Kranefuss from Arny’s various references to the Dreaming Body. This article was published in the Jung Journal, part of the C. G. Jung Gesellschaft of Cologne Germany (http://www.cgjung.org/jung_zeit.htm ).

'It seems to me, after half a lifetime as a Jungian analyst, that yes, at its very core it is Jungian analysis, or, let me say, it springs from the seed of Jungian analysis. The work they do, and call "Process Oriented Psychology," embodies Jung's basic concepts, but carries these into spaces within the psyche and also into the world, beyond what Jung and most Jungians have imagined. And more than conceptualizing, more than understanding, more than interpreting phenomenena, the Mindells enter actively into the processes through which phenomena transform themselves. Their methods differ from that of most analysts in that, in addition to one-to-one personal analysis, they do intimate personal work in groups. This is not the same as conventional group process, because for the Mindells the individuation of the person becomes the theme of the group.' (p.39)

'Tracing the development of the Mindells' work from its beginnings, it seems to me that it extends in a spiral fashion, emanating from the personal self of the individual and, turning in ever widening gyres, it includes small groups, larger groups, communities and beyond. The Worldwork crosses boundaries of gender, language, religion, race and nation. Ambitious? Yes. Grandiose? No. Their work expands the scope of Jung's psychology to include not only the psyche but also the body, relationships and the total environment. Like many scientists and philosophers who are consciously looking toward the twenty-first century, the Mindells are working with the human organism in its wider context. In this way they help make manifest Jung's late, brilliant intuition of the unus mundus (italics), one world in which differing opposites seek reconciliation.' (p.40)

WE MUST ALL BREATHE : ARNOLD MINDELL, PH.D. AT 61, BY ROBERT S. HENDERSON (UPDATED JULY 2007)

From Quadrant, Volume XXXV:2, Summer 2005, C. G. Jung Foundation, New York . Rev Dr. Robert S. Henderson is a Pastoral Psychotherapist in Glastonbury, Connecticut. This interview will be in “Living With Jung: Enterviews with Jungian Analysts” which will be published by Spring Journal and Books. Robert and his wife, Janis, are the authors.

This interview occurred in connection with an International Association of Analytical Psychologists Jungian conference in Barcelona entitled, “The Edges of Experience.” Arny enjoyed speaking about his transitions at the edges of Jungian psychology.

URSULA HOHLER's articles on Jung and Processwork

Ursula Hohler, lic.phil. studied German and History in Zürich and finished her training at the C.G. Jung Institute Küsnacht in 1984. She then completed training in Process Oriented Psychology, Trauma Therapy and Expressive Arts. She co-founded the Research Society for Process Oriented Psychology in Zürich, and from 1989-2008 served on the staff for six Worldwork-Seminars in Europe and the United States. At present, she is a training analyst at ISAPZURICH and works in private practice as an analyst, psychotherapist, coach, supervisor and group facilitator. See www.ursulahohler.ch

Dr. Arlene Audergon’s, good book, “The War Hotel: Psychological Dynamics in Violent Conflict.” It weaves processwork together with social consciousness to show how to deal with war and its results.

PROCESSWORK AND RHEO-MODES: THE FLOW OF THE DREAMING PROCESS

Once again, we are exploring Aboriginal shamanistic traditions, and the teachings of Castaneda’s Don Juan. In particular, we wonder just what is needed for individuals and groups to “shape shift” and change “assemblage points”. That is, what is needed to move from the time and space identification of everyday reality to the “Nagual”, that is to temporarily move into the “rheo-mode.” Rheo means “stream” or “flow”. We therefore speak of a “rheo-mode” to mean the flow of the dreaming process. We are very thankful to Emetchi for the 150 feet long wonderful mural she painted on the driveway wall outside the Process Work Institute of Portland. She let us use two of the many pictures of that mural. When we saw what we call her “Bear Dance”, we immediately thought of what it is like to dance at the edge, and of the shaman’s sense of earth power at that point. The second picture, “At the Edge Before the Rheo-mode” we see the larger perspective of what happens at the edge. When we dance at the brink, the known world is behind and the rainbow serpent path lies in front, leading the shaman-artist into the unknown.

YOUR BRAIN’S LEFT AND RIGHT HEMISPHERES (OR) YOUR CONSENSUS REALITY AND DREAMLAND MINDS

Thanks to Tamara Scarlett-Lyon, we saw this moving presentation by neuro-anatomist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor which vividly illustrates the three levels of experience in process oriented psychology. In this video, she describes the experience of a massive stroke she had in her left brain hemisphere. She tells about the amazing experiences she had as a result of this stroke, and how she understood her left hemisphere in terms of what we have been calling consensus reality. Listen to what she says about her right hemisphere, it sounds like what we have been calling, dreamland’s nonlocality and essence levels.

Pathology or Path of Life: Taoism, Process Work and Disturbing Adolescents By K. Gene Hansen, Ph.D.

We were very interested to read Gene Hansen’s remarkable application of process oriented relationship work, signal theory and edges to working with young people. His methods and theory integrate recent advances of Processwork with his own creative style of interacting with, understanding, and assisting adolescents. He uses relationship work and aspects of group process.

DISCOURSE AND PROCESS THEORIES: SEYLA BENHABIB AND ARNOLD MINDELL

By Professor J.J. Hendricks, California State University, Stanislaus Department of Politics and Public Administration.

Introduction

This paper examines the points of agreement and difference between two theorists who address similar themes in very different milieus, coming from different perspectives and disciplines. One of the theorists, Arnold Mindell would call this a bootstrap paper discussing two bootstrap theories. Seyla Benhabib’s stated philosophical project is “to situate reason and the moral self in contexts of gender and community , while insisting of the discursive power of individuals to challenge such situatedness in the name of future identities and communities, and universalistic principles.”

A critical theorist, Benhabib extends Habermas’ discourse theory by reconstituting it phenomenologically though insights gleaned from Hannah Arendt and Carol Gilligan. She intends to capture a pragmatic, yet utopian vision of reflexivity and radical egalitarianism through the moral conversation, and further, she extends the options for the marginalized in challenging their situatedness as mentioned above. She situates discourse theory, “between liberalism and communitarianism, Kantian universalism and Hegelian Sittlihkeit.”

Arnold Mindell’s is a theory of emergence.

His stated psychological goal is “to develop skills and methods for working with the emerging world situation: a planet with five thousand different languages and religions whose inhabitants know more about launching spaceships than about gettingalong with each other. This form of process psychology is world work – an interdisciplinary method that helps small and large groups of people to live, work and grow together within their environment. The challenge is to develop organizational and conflict resolution so that they reflect democratic principles and are widely applicable.

Mindell draws on modern psychology – “the Jungian method of following the unconscious, the Gestalt focus on process, Carl Rogers unconditional support for the individual, the transpersonal focus on the divine, and the systems principles from economics, politics and physics.”

His primary influences are Jung, physics and the Tao. He too, is interested in extending options for expression of voices left out of the discussion.

MINISTRY OF MAAT

We are thankful to and following with great interest, the creative work of our friend and colleague, Ione and her focus on women’s mysteries. We feel very lucky to be “honorary ministers” of Maat. See for more:

SET THEORY AND PROCESS IDEAS

In her article, ”Union and Creative Emptiness: Set Theory as a Tool for Exploring our Inner Worlds,” Anne Willmann explains and uses mathematical concepts from set theory to elucidate the big U and many other aspects of Processwork. Thank you Anne for this paper!

Anne’s email address is willmann@clear.net.nz. She is the principal of an international school in New Zealand.

Theatre

We recently discovered that various known Polish Theater and Film directors acknowledge our work as inspiring their’s. We remember the “Old Theatre’s” most important current collaborator, Krystian Lupa According to Wikipedia, “Lupa shatters the traditional action of the performances, stretching their tempos and concentrating on the poetic values of particular situations rather than the plot or conflict. This is a theatre of philosophical and existential reflection in whose centre is situated the modern human being, attempting to find a place in an ever more dehumanised world.”

See also the wonderful work of the theater/opera director Phelim McDermott:

Phelim McDermott’s Satyagraha; English National Opera

Mural Art

We have been admiring the wall painting done by Qahira Lynn, (Tel. USA 1 541 547 5120.) See our pictures of the mural she painted on the side wall of the Green Salmon Café in Yachats, Oregon. (Unfortunately our picture could not avoid the end of a truck). Thanks Qahira!